This paper is an exploration in the semantics and pragmatics of linguistic feedback, i.e., linguistic mechanisms which enable the participants in spoken interaction to exchange information about basic communicative functions, such as contact, perception, understanding, and attitudinal reactions to the communicated content. Special attention is given to the type of reaction conveyed by feedback utterances, the communicative status of the information conveyed (i. e., the level of awareness and intentionality of the communicating sender), and the context sensitivity of feedback expressions. With regard to context sensitivity, which is one of the most characteristic features of feedback expressions, the discussion focuses on the way in which the type of speech act (mood), the factual polarity and the information status of the preceding utterance influence the interpretation of feedback utterances. The different content dimensions are exemplified by data from recorded dialogues and by data given through linguistic intuition. Finally, two different ways of formalizing the analysis are examined, one using attribute-value matrices and one based on the theory of situation semantics.

Many theorists have dismissed a priori the idea that distributional information could play a significant role in syntactic category acquisition. We demonstrate empirically that such information provides a powerful cue to syntactic category membership, which can be exploited by a variety of simple, psychologically plausible mechanisms. We present a range of results using a large corpus of child-directed speech and explore their psychological implications. While our results show that a considerable amount of information concerning the syntac-tic categories can be obtained from distributional information alone, we stress that many other sources of information may also be potential contributors to the identification of syntactic classes. I.

It is perhaps misleading to use the word theory to describe the view of language acquisition and cognitive development, which is the subject of this chapter. This word is used as a matter of convenience; it applies here to what is best characterized as a partially completed program of research—a jigsaw puzzle in which certain pieces have been positioned with

Introduction 2.1.2 The notion of feedback - background 2.1.3 Feedback and language acquisition 2.2 Informants, activities, data, and coding 2.2.1 Informants 2.2.2 Activities 2.2.3 Data 2.2.4 Coding 2.3 Results and discussion 2.3.1 The relative share of feedback containing utterances and feedback words 2.3.2 The development of the linguistic categories for eliciting and giving feedback 2.3.3 Repetitions as feedback 2.3.4 Feedback and activity type 2.3.5 Discovering simple feedback systems 2.4 Conclusions 2.5 Where do we go from here? - Perspectives for further research 2 2 . Feedback in second language acquisition Jens Allwood 2 . 1 The notion of feedback 2.1.1 Introduction One of the key questions concerning language acquisition is the question of how one can learn a new language while simultaneously being forced to communicate in that language. This is the situation which has probably always been the lot of the majority of children and adults acquiring a new

This paper describes a novel approach to unsupervised learning that has been developed within a framework designed to integrate learning with such things as parsing and production of language, fuzzy pattern recognition and best-match information retrieval, class hierarchies with inheritance of attributes, probabilistic and exact forms of reasoning, and others. This framework, which may be characterised as information compression by multiple alignment, unification and search (ICMAUS), is founded on principles of Minimum Length Encoding. Some of its capabilities (other than learning) are briefly described. The main body of the paper describes SP70, a computer model of the ICMAUS framework that incorporates processes for unsupervised learning. Examples are presented to show how the model can infer plausible grammars from appropriate input. Anticipated future developments of the model are briefly discussed.

One of the great challenges in linguistics and cognitive science is to understand the nature of the mental representation of language. The precise mechanisms of the mind are unknown, but can be modeled through observation and experimentation. By viewing the mind as a computational device that receives input (primary linguistic data) and produces output (the development of grammatical speech) during language acquisition, one can reason about what representations and algorithms must be internal to the learner. In this thesis, I investigate the acquisition of morphology. The principal challenges are how to learn a theory in the presence of sparse data, and in a manner that can provide explanations for the developmental processes in child language acquisition. The main idea underlying this work is that a consideration of the different aspects of language acquisition places strong constraints on cognitively plausible representations and algorithms that are internal to the learner. To develop a model of morphology acquisition, I pursue three lines of work: iv First, I formulate a cognitively-oriented computational framework for studying language acquisition that consists of four components: the linguistic representation, the

Abstract. This paper describes a novel approach to grammar induction that has been developed within a framework designed to integrate learning with other aspects of computing, AI, mathematics and logic. This framework, called information compression by multiple alignment, unification and search (ICMAUS), is founded on principles of Minimum Length Encoding pioneered by Solomonoff and others. Most of the paper describes SP70, a computer model of the ICMAUS framework that incorporates processes for unsupervised learning of grammars. An example is presented to show how the model can infer a plausible grammar from appropriate input. Limitations of the current model and how they may be overcome are briefly discussed. 1

ion is considering an object or group of objects from one viewpoint while disregarding all other properties of the object. The purpose of abstraction is to single out one feature, which, in contrast to all other features, is considered particularly important in this connection. All concept formation depends on this process of abstraction. Our problem is to consider human language under the one viewpoint of its semiotic properties, while disregarding all its other properties. We single out the semiotic properties, which in contrast to all other properties of language, we consider particularly important for the characterization of language. Singling out the semiotic properties of language I call semiotic abstraction. One fundamental condition on semiotic abstraction is the Law of the SoundMeaning Bond. The Law of the Sound-Meaning Bond The only distinctions between meanings that are semiotically relevant are those that correlate with the distinctions between their phonic expressions;...

Ambiguity is a pervasive and important as-pect of natural language. Ambiguities, which are disambiguated by context, contribute powerfully to the expressiveness of natural language as com-pared to formal languages. In computational systems using natural language, problems of prop-erly controlling ambiguity are particularly large, partially because of the necessity to circumvent parsings due to multiple orderings in the appli-cation of rules. Features, that is, subcategorizations of parts-of-speech, constitute an effective means for controlling syntactic ambiguity through order-ing the hierarchical organization of syntactic con-stituents. This is the solution adopted for con-trolling ambiguity in REL English, which is part of the REL (Rapidly Extensible Language) System. REL is a total software system for faciiitating man/machine communications. The efficiency of processing natural language in REL English is achieved both by the detailed syntactic aspects which are incorporated into the REL English grammar, and by means of the particular imple-mentation for processing features in the parsing algorithm. KEY WORDS AND PHRASES

Because many studies of small talk (and talk in general) focus on the input of main speakers, the verbal behavior of listeners is often underrepresented in descriptions of interaction. The notion of small talk as talk superfluous to transactional exigencies enables us to encompass a variety of phenomena, including phatic exchanges, relational language, and various types of insertion sequence. This article adds to this range of phenomena by examining a set of highfrequency short listener response tokens that fulfill the criteria of being superfluous to transactional needs, of being focused on the interpersonal plane of discourse, and of having social functions that seem to overlap with those of phatic and relational episodes in different types of talk. Probably because the items involved are themselves “small ” (in that their position is often difficult to locate on the cline from back-channels to full turns), their relational importance is easily overlooked. Small talk is, in lay terms at least, seen as talk that is in some sense an “extra ” to the business at hand in any spoken interaction and as existing in “the pragmatic space between and among the transactional and the relational functions of talk, ” to quote Candlin (2000, p. xv), who raised some of the problems associated with this idea of small talk, as it Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to Michael McCarthy, School of English